“Spin” and “Rolling Stone” Get Into Catfight Over Amy Winehouse

You’ll be seeing a lot of Amy Winehouse on the newsstands in the coming weeks–and all because Jann Wenner hates hearing the word “no.”

According to a source close to the situation, Winehouse was booked as an exclusive for the July cover of Spin; such exclusivity deals are common among the music mags, as competing covers with the same subject tends to hurt newsstand sales and cool cred. Winehouse did an interview and a photo shoot with Terry Richardson, and all was well in the Spin world.

That is, until a few days ago, when Wenner decided that the British singer should be on the cover of Rolling Stone; after he was told that Spin had gotten to her first, Wenner circumvented the label’s publicists altogether and personally lobbied Universal head Doug Morris for the cover (UPDATE: Another source says it was in fact Universal president Monte Lipman). The gambit worked, and the RS Winehouse write-up–which we’re told is being put together, like, right now–will now come out in early June, beating Spin by a few weeks.

A representative for Rolling Stone had no comment, and we’re still waiting for word from Universal. But when we contacted Spin editor Doug Brod, he said: “We at Spin are proud to have inspired Rolling Stone’s choice of cover subjects. As always, if there’s anything else they need, they can feel free to call us anytime. By the way, our next cover’s Bob Dylan. But don’t tell anyone.”

damn, with a few clicks, I ended up at RS Daily and discovered that Phil Spector tried to kill Too Short.

chocomel

hey, I bet he wishes he could take a mulligan on that Colbert interview…

“I’m glad you asked, there’s this amazing female singer that I’ve been following, Amy Winehouse. Though not many people have heard of her, I predict she’ll make many influential and long lasting contributions to the canon of modern music…”

MC

Not so sure about the whole Wenner “circumvented the label’s publicists altogether” part. Who’s getting the rock world’s equivalent of a bottom of the ninth World Series Game 7 grand slam homerun to win? (Answer: the label’s publicists.)

Lucas Jensen

Isn’t this much ado about nothing? Is she really that big? Am I missing something?

Dick Laurent is dead.

Jann Wenner still doesn’t know what the kids want…and by kids I mean 40 year old men.

…apparently I forgot who I was talking about, a British woman with loose morals and a nice body is just fine. MY bad.

Chris Molanphy

Back in ’95, SPIN actually got the last laugh on the Morrisette cover catfight: their photo of Alanis was much, much sexier.

Maybe they’ll pull it off again. At the end of the day, what is the cover of these mags besides wank fodder?

Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee

This chick is still around?

Luiis

Well this sucks,I subscribe to both Rolling Stone AND Spin. Which should I throw out?
Ha!

parrotrunner

women be shoppin

lesbiansayswhat

Why hasn’t anyone anywhere pointed out that Amy Winehouse songs rely heavily on old R&B sounds? Though her voice is unique..the songwriting represents some of the best appropriation of black music since Elvis. Long lasting contributor to the canon of modern music my ass…

Weezy F Baby

This reminds me of the period when Poise and Sparkle would run the same covers as eachother every month.

Jfrankparnell

If Spin has any balls left, they’ll axe the Winehouse cover and put Sharon Jones on there at the same time as the Rolling Stone cover; in fact, if RS’s cover comes out first, they could hurry-job it to look clothers&hair-wise the same as RS’s but for the subject. Which would be funny. At least to me.

This would be the 1992 Spin, though.

Trackback

Genesis returned to the stage last week to play three songs for VH1: Rock Honors (Heart, Ozzy Osbourne and ZZ Top also played the show).

cerulgalactus

Who?

nonce

All I know about this woman is that she’s a drunk. Is that all it takes, now? Or has she released some music? I’d like to hear some so I can stop pre-judging her and just judge her outright.

Cam/ron

Terry Richardson is more like ’03, back when Vice magazine and everything it “ironically” stood for was still considered to be “cutting-edge.” Something tells me that Winehouse’s RS cover will resemble an American Apparel ad. There will also be five self-portraits of Terry having Amy lay her head on his bare chest while he has a shit-eating grin.

GeddyLee

Isn’t Terry Richardson like so 2005? Seriously. How did he have time to shoot Winehouse in-between all those Lindsay Lohan shoots?

And incidentally, Universal had no idea Winehouse’s record would ever go this far. Back In Black is yet another happy accident and also proof that major labels are clueless when it comes to realizing they have gold in their hands. If they were half-conscious and had intended this to be a huge success, they would they have never hired the same publicist that still works on Michael McDonald and 38 Special.

GeddyLee

Excuse me. Back TO Black. Must’ve had AC/DC on the brain.

Hyman Decent

@Dick Laurent is dead.: Amy Winehouse no longer has a nice body, just a nice rack. She looks emaciated now.